The proliferation of consumer wireless electronics (e.g. smartphones, tablet PCs and laptops) has resulted in consumers increasingly carrying music collections with them. Speaker manufacturers have responded to this market trend by making smaller, more portable wireless speakers and wireless multi-room speakers (e.g., Bluetooth portable speakers and multi-room Wi-Fi speakers). As the form factor of wireless speakers shrinks, the area available for user input controls (e.g. Volume, Play, Pause) has also decreased. In a related area smart home electronics are becoming more popular. It would be advantageous to incorporate a speaker into new implementations of traditional devices (e.g. electrical switches, Thermostats and door locks). Providing adequate music-quality sound in a small enclosure is difficult, in part because speakers typically requires a large volume of space in a device enclosure. The space required to transmit sound form a speaker in a smart home device (e.g. a thermostat or light switch) competes for available space with the legacy control functions of traditional home control devices (e.g. electrical switches and Buttons and keypads, door-bells and light fixtures). For example the size and shape of household electrical junction boxes has remained largely unchanged since the 1940's. A building based, wall-mounted electrical switch (e.g. light switch) typically comprises of three parts: a junction box located on or within the wall, one or more switches mounted inside the junction box (e.g. paddle and button types) and a faceplate to cover the switches. The junction box has one or more bays to accommodate one or more switches. Each bay is approximately 2 inches wide and 4 inches high, therefore a 2-bay box would be 4 inches wide and could accommodate two standard light switches. When a house is constructed, the size of each junction box is typically selected to implement the lighting design. There are typically no unused or empty bays in junction boxes. This practice of “right-sizing” junction boxes is in part because unused bays must be covered for safety purposes and the presence of nonfunctioning extra bays with blank cover plates can be confusing to users. Recent trends in smart home appliances (e.g. wirelessly enabled lights and switches) make these prewired electrical junction boxes attractive location for new functionality. The practice of selecting the size of junction boxes to fit the original electrical requirements (e.g. lighting requirements and the need for switch-activated electrical outlets) is problematic to the task of adding additional functionality within junction boxes in existing homes. An ongoing challenge is how to increase the functionality within household electrical boxes while maintain the original functionality, which is often to provide electrical switching (e.g. light switches).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,826 disclose a speaker placed beside a light switch in a two-bay junction box. The speaker occupies one bay of the junction box. One disadvantages of this approach is that it reduces the functionality of the junction box by 1 switch. Another disadvantage is that this speaker-switch combination cannot be implemented in a single-bay junction box. U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,037 discloses a more compact speaker-switch combination but still requires a 2-bay junction box. Means of implementing these designs in a 1-bay box is not disclosed. This is an important limitation since the light switch in many rooms is located in a single-bay junction box. Importantly U.S. Pat. No. 7,608,948, U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,826 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,037 do not provide means to effectively combine the functions of sound transmission and electrical switching. In conclusion, insofar as I am aware, no electrical switch assembly previously disclosed has provided a built-in speaker while maintaining the functionality of all available switching bays in the junction box. Similarly, no electrical switch assembly has combined both a speaker and a lighting switch in a single-bay configuration. Similarly, no electrical switch assembly has provided a faceplate that effectively combines sound transmission and electrical switching.